Talent News Round-Up: AI Talent Development, Gen Z CVs, and the Job Market
Staying updated on the latest workforce trends is crucial for TA leaders and HR professionals. This week, we delve into three significant developments shaping the talent landscape and get SocialTalent Director of Content, Holly Fawcett’s first-hand takes on these pieces.
- Our first article is from Work Life and looks at how Gen AI is being leveraged to help HR teams when it comes to talent development. The real world examples from Rolls Royce and Conagra are particularly insightful.
- Next, we explore Business Insider’s article which examines the relevancy of the CV for Gen Z candidates. Are theses relics of the past or do they still have some use in today’s hiring process?
- And finally, Fast Company takes a dive into the labor market to give us a glimpse into how it’s faring. Are the numbers positive or just a smokescreen for the tenuous balancing act that needs to be maintained right now?
Join us as we explore these pivotal insights and their implications for the future of work.
1. How Rolls Royce and Conagra HR Teams Use Gen AI for Talent Development
Source: Work Life
Rolls Royce and Conagra are leveraging generative AI for talent development through an HR-centric tool called Galileo, developed by the Josh Bersin Company. Rolls Royce is using it to upskill their HR professionals and streamline HR functions across their global workforce. Conagra is modernizing its HR practices, particularly in talent development and internal succession planning, by centralizing and standardizing HR processes. Both companies aim to enhance HR efficiency and skill-building to adapt to evolving business needs and workforce challenges.
Holly Fawcett’s take on this:
“The advent of consumer-grade GenAI has so many powerful applications, and this is a great example of how a centralized and internal-facing business function like HR can benefit from the world’s knowledge and innovation. HR has been wishing for a magic wand that can instantly analyze every employee’s skills, historical performance and career preferences to develop a succession plan, or a way to upload every HR skill and case study into our brains like in the Matrix – of course in reality that just wasn’t feasible. It sounds like tools like Galileo are getting us closer to that dream. Particularly in a tumultuous market where organizations are finding they have a skills-mismatch or a people operations function that’s not fit for purpose, HR needs to lead the conversation with real strategies to move the company forward. HR professionals can spend more time being the consultative business partner that their companies need, and less time poring through case studies and spreadsheets.“
2. One Way Employers Can Attract Gen Z Talent is by Ditching Résumés
Source: Business Insider
Recruiter Sophie O’Brien suggests that companies should ditch résumés to attract Gen Z talent, as traditional hiring methods can hinder diversity and inclusivity. Résumés often reveal biases and privilege, and don’t accurately reflect candidates’ skills and potential. O’Brien successfully hired interns based on their practical work, leading to permanent positions. Companies like december19, Mobsta, and My Big Career have adopted résumé-free hiring to enhance diversity and efficiency, focusing on candidates’ values and skills rather than educational background. This approach offers fairer opportunities and boosts confidence among Gen Z candidates.
Holly Fawcett’s take on this:
“Evaluating entry-level candidates by way of a skills test and work trial is absolutely the best way to assess their ability and potential. It’s also the most fair, so long as everyone has an equal opportunity and access to the technology to participate. While it’s not unique to Gen Z (this is a tried and tested method for early-talent hiring for decades) it definitely is appropriate for a Gen Z candidate pool. Everyone suffers from some level of cognitive trickery that makes us favor people who seem more impressive – a personal recommendation from your company’s CEO, an MIT graduate, a summer intern at Goldman Sachs, a captain of the football team… At face value, all of these are inappropriate proxies for determining that someone is the best candidate. I’m totally in favor of spreading this out further than entry-level candidates and go for real merit-based hiring.“
3. 175,000 jobs were likely added to the U.S. workforce in July
Source: Fast Company
The U.S. job market added an estimated 175,000 jobs in July, reflecting a gradual hiring slowdown desired by the Federal Reserve to ease wage pressure without causing widespread layoffs. Unemployment is expected to remain steady at 4.1%. Although the job growth rate has decreased compared to previous years, layoffs remain low, and the labor force is growing due to an influx of new workers. This stability is encouraging for the Fed, aiming to combat inflation without triggering a recession.
Holly Fawcett’s take on this:
“The US job market on paper seems strong, but in reality it’s lop-sided – and this is the intention of the Fed, letting off steam in one overheated part of the economy and not across the board, reducing the rise in salaries and hopefully also reducing the rate of inflation. But a slowdown in hiring can become a tipping point so this must be watched carefully – but maybe not by us normal folks. For those of us in the Talent space, a slowdown in hiring (at a crawl in tech) doesn’t mean the worst, although we often bear the brunt of job losses. We can take our experience of the tech industry and apply it to booming sectors who similarly need next-level talent – healthcare, financial services, consulting, manufacturing. Let the stock market and CNBC do the worrying, while we focus on doing the work.“